“Paradise Lost is a poem. The old, blind bastard’s trying to sing to you. Listen, as the Isley Brothers say, to the music. You must learn to do that before you can expect to understand. Slowly. Slowly. A few licks… — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
I always liked to write and had fun writing, but I didn't have any pretensions about being a writer. I liked to read and liked to putz around and write little stories or poems, but my thing was sports. — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
My mother loved my father. From my view, she let him get away with too much. It broke my heart to see him in… — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
Too much is made for us; too much is given to us - even those of us who are underprivileged. The poverty is given… — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
A great artist transforms our world, removes scales from our eyes, plugs from our ears, gloves from our fingertips, teaches us to perceive reality… — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
That's what writing is: it's imagining that you can make a world. That's what basketball is, too: it's imagining the game as a world. — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
I'm very hard-nosed and cold-blooded and I can walk past a drowning man. If I have someplace else to go, well, tough s**t. I… — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
I get off on anticipating and waiting much more than I get off on the actual event. — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
You have to be a minor superhero just to get to be a dignified man, and that's kind of exacerbated for men of color. — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
Stories are told over time, and so they naturally accrue meanings. — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
That's been my routine for years and years... Up early before everybody else, before I get connected, before I get bugged, before I have… — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
My father was intelligent and closed-mouthed. He knew a lot more than what he was ever going to tell you. — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
What I wanted to do in talking about basketball in 'Hoop Roots' was retrieve the game as something to participate in, not to watch. — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
Books are an attempt to control something that's uncontrollable. That's one of the beauties of African American life. There was this thing called slavery… — John Edgar Wideman Copy Share Image
